"The Greatest Weapon System You've Never heard of !" Topic

"Primitive Man," prior to the invention of the BOW, 40,000 years ago developed a weapon system that would forever change the course of Mankind. 40,000 years ago, Man was far from being the predominate predator on the planet. His competitors, Saber-toothed tigers and cave bears, among others, dwarfed their modern equivalents. We were weak and slow. Spears with their stone tips lacked the penetrating power to take down larger prey such as the Woolly Mammoth, much less our competitors. "Primitive Man" invented the ATLATL, a short handle 18 to 24 inches long that hooked into the end of a spear/arrow. The effect was profound. This simple device multiplied by 3X the throwing force of a man's arm. At last, mankind had a weapon system that allowed him to take down large prey such as the Mammoth and to kill his carnivore competitors at a safe distance. The ATLATL was the weapon that put Mankind on the top of the food chain. A woman archeaologist, who had never used one, tested the penetration of the Atlatl. With her first shot, she threw a Spear through a 55 gallon steel drum. The current long distance throw with an Atlatl is 848 feet. Admittedly, this is with space age materials,(a carbon fiber Atlatl and an Aluminum spear/arrow) but you can begin to see its lethality.

I had a history teacher in high school who would without fail refer to the atlatl as "the atomic bomb of its day" at any opportunity.

Yeah baby!I was cruising early tech a few weeks back,there is a lot of material on the subject.As an aside we used to make a sling version out of this when I was a lad in Scotland,a piece of fishing line or string with a wee lead sinker or a knot at one end,a notch in a handmade arrow(plant supports or cane is good with fletching made out of playing cards).Lay the line over the notch with your bight knot or weight beside the notch,go around the arrow with your line and OVER THE ARROWSIDE OF THE BIGHT and wrap the excess around your hand untill the arrow/javelin is held about 1/4 the way down the shaft between thumb and next fingie and let fly.This was in the sixties oatmeal savages indeed.

Nothing like a little self promotion from a 40,000 year old weapon. ;)

It was indeed the Atomic Bomb of it's day. I was a member of TMP but when I began to read about the ATLATL I changed my TMP name to ATLATL. The website flight-toys.com/atlatl.html has good links to this subject.

Some guy in our town is some sort of atlatl champion. I don't know of how much of an area or how long or if he even still is the champion but they had a picture of him in the paper and everything. I haven't seen him around for a couple of years. He has a full beard on one side of his face and the other side is shaved clean.

I thought everybody learned about atlatls in high school anthropology.

If the atlatl is so good, why did it die out?

And, more importantly…

is it possible to sculpt a warrior using an atlatl, in an action pose?

Ed.,

Throwing a spear with an Atlatl doesn't look that different, in terms of the arm movement, from throwing a spear without one.

You can take any figure in the overarm spear/javelin throwing position, and add an atlatl under the spear/dart. The atlatl is held at the "front" end, the back end is notched against the base of the spear.

The more I think of it, the more I reckon it would be quite easy to make a mini euqipped with an Atlatl. A bit of kit bashing and converting may have to be done, but it certainly is a very feasible thing to do.

Now I may be wrong here, but hazy images of Slann Warriors from GW spring to mind, and some of them may have been armed with the Atlatl. I think I remember seeing them around '87 or '88 here in the UK.

Yeah, nice invention.

Simply put the atlatl extends the length of the throwing arm resulting in a dramatic increase in acceleration of the speed of the spear. The flexing of the atlatl also adds some extra impetus to the spear.

My 7 year old daughter shot a dart clean throw a hay bale using an atlatl, and that was on her first attempt. Quite unexpected and very impressive.

First let me thank you for starting the seperate board for prehistorics. The ATLATL was later supplanted by the bow and arrow. It remains one of the longest used weapon systems in Human history. I believe that some Amazon tribes still use it today. Cortez feared this weapon above all others because it was the only weapon system that could penetrate Spainish Armor. What if the Aztecs had used more Atlatls? Perhaps the Conquistadors would have been bleached bones in the jungle.

For figure conversions I took spear throwers and cut away the spear. I then drilled the hand out. I took a piece of floweral wire ( very malleable) and pounded it into a thin strip. I then bent one end up and glued the other end into the drilled hand of the spear thrower. Then I glued a spear with feathers onto the Atlatl.

The atlatl has NOT died out. If you go up to central/northern Australia you will still see traditional Aborignal hunters useing their version of the atlatl called the Woomera. Basicly the same thing only difference being the name it was given. Some are also designed to double as warclubs.

Eureka have figs with atlatls that with a bit of green stuff would easily convert into cavemen. (in their aztec range)

should add the Aborignals can also give the spear a spin like a rifled bullet with their woomeras. I have seen chaps in their 80's calmly pop an eight/nine foot long hardwood spear through a roos thigh at 150-200m. (1m=1 yard)

More proof it hasn't died out: I've seen people wearing T-shirts for an atlatl club in the area (NE Pennsylvania). I think it may part of a national organization.

First I must state that I am not a sock puppet. Frito Butterbuns I do not take credit for this weapon system, nor do I sell ATLATLs. He is however correct that I some months ago changed my TMP name to ATLATL, but only out of respect for our "Primitive Ancestors". Bill could give you the date of the change. Once I began reading about this amazing weapon system, I was in awe. You will also note that I continually parenthesize "Primitive Man". I do not think our ancestors were nearly as primitive as we may suppose! I prefer to think if we went back in time our "Primative Ancestors" would have much to teach us.

"Primitive" is relative, of course. Some younguns I know would define the term as anything before Compact Discs.

Bill could give you the date of the change.

March 9th, 2005

For figure conversions I took spear throwers…

So, how exactly does a spear thrower differ from an atlatl?

Ed, atlatl is the name for a spearthrower (the stick, not the person).

Spearthrowers are dead easy to make with Styrene Rod. At 28mm scale it would look like a flat rod about 5-10mm long and a couple of mm wide.

Glue the short flat rod under the back end of a longer spear/dart with the end of the atlatl aligned with the end of the spear. Attach the other end of the atlatl to the throwing hand of your figure.

Atlatl is, of course the Nahuatl (aka Aztec) name fo the device.

re: 'Primitive' – the accepted term in archaeological-anthropological circles is 'preliterate'.

StarfuryXL5, do you live in NE PA? I'm in Pittston, and belong to a club that plays in Dickson City every other Saturday.

Every ".com" has now officially been taken. Fortunately this one has nice diagrams:

atlatl.com

You find such cool things on TMP.

I used to love using the Atl-Atl in Worlds Of Ultima: Savage Empire. Was one of my prefered weapons (next to, obviously, the rifle) when it came to ranged combat.

Primitive weaponry's some fascinating stuff, though. The creative ways early man found to get what he wanted, when he had almost no technology to fall back on, are incredibly inventive.

Ever wonder what some of those minds could have come up with if they'd been raised in the modern world, but still hit the same level of ingenuity?

- Monk

John the OFM: I'm in Honesdale, and wish I had the time to play. I just game vicariously through others for now. But, someday…

Fortunately, they invented the device prior to the invention of lawyers. Otherwise it would still be patent pending while copyright was being argued out in court.

It would be cool to see some minis for post-apocalyptic games, ala Road Warrior, with atlatl cobbled together from post-consumer stuff like steel tube from patio furniture or aluminium window frame.

Ken

I want one. I remeber reading about these as a kid. Cheers guys

There are also African bush tribes that still use the Atlatl or a variation of it!

What about "throwing sticks"?
Didn't Egyptians and other Africans used the "throwing sticks" (something like an Australian boomerang) in hunting and war?

CC

Go rent 13 warrior, which is the movie version of "Eaters of the Dead" – The "bad guys" in the movie are primatives attacking invading Vikings. And they use Atlatl!!! Only movie that I know of that ever depict anybody using those weapons!

Today, I first learned the true magazine capacity on the BREN gun. Now I've learned buckets about the atlatl.

TMP: Learnin' me good for six years and still counting!

- Rod

Slings work on the same principle, as arm extensions. Plumbata too.

why wouldn't you call them primitive though? Primitive is by nature a relative term, and an Atlatl (or sling), while way better than just hand thrown, is about as simple a tool as one could make, and very instinctive for anyone who ever waved a stick around. we made the rock throwing version of an atlatl as kids without ever knowing it had a name.

I would say they went out of fashion because they are inherently less accurate, slower and heavier than a bow, and people either ran out of really big game or found better ways of killing the big game that didn't require the steel-drum-penetrating power of an atlatl.

Thane Morgan, from your response I'm not sure you understand the subtle mechanics of the ATLATL. Although I have used the term spear/arrow to name the projectile that the atlatl throws it is more correctly called a Dart. The Dart can be 6 feet or longer in length and only slightly larger in diameter to our modern arrow. Atlatl users found that the optimal ratio of Atlantl(handle) length to dart length is PI. The true greatness of the system is that it is not just a spear thrower. The dart because of it's small diameter is flexible. The thrower moves his arm foward to release, the flexible shaft of the dart arches. Newtonian Physics, a body at rest will tend to remain at rest. This causes the dart to arch and store energy like a coiled spring. This coiled energy is released at the moment the dart leaves the atlatl handle. This causes the dart to accelerate to over 100mph. This weapon system is not heavier than a Bow, Atlatl and dart together weigh less than a pound. As for being " inherently less accurate", I doubt that. Bows, like the Atlatl, require a lot of practice to achieve proficency and accuracy. Hunger and competing predators would be great incentive. "Primitive Man" had invented a weapon system that was a technological leap, akin to Man landing on the moon. Although given his tenuous posistion in the food chain at the time, ultimately more important.

ATLATLS, THROWING STICKS AND SPEAR THROWERS ARE BASICALLY THE SAME THING; socketed stick or bone used to increase the range and lethality of the thrown spear.

"WOOMERA" was also used in ancient warfare (GREEK if my brain remembers rightly) but the GREEKS called this cord wound round the shaft of javelins by another name i cannot remember.

i can do yer one better for the effectiveness of the atl-atl/throwing stick/ spear thrower.

i watched a boffin friend , armed with a crude shafted spear, tipped with stone, throw it about 100 yards at a hide covered recently dead beef (soon to be readified for a massive TX barbeque feast) and sink that spear about 18" into the heart/lung area of said beef . . . went right through a couple of ribs, caused massive trauma to the lungs. in "real life" the critter would not have "run" very far before "keeling over" and becoming dinner for the neolithic hunters and their folks . . .

much more impressive than penetrating a presumably empty 55 gal fuel drum . . .

DAWGIE

For a previous discussion on these related subjects:

TMP link

CC

It's only a matter of time until this shows up on an episode of CSI.